We know the script and the white terrorist bingo card game. John Russell Houser, the Lafayette mass shooter, will be humanized, guns will no be central to the "national conversation", Right-wing ideology will be left not critically scrutinized, and toxic white masculinity will go unmentioned by the mainstream corporate media.

The mainstream corporate media is unwilling to state in a plain and direct way that white men are disproportionately represented relative to their percentage of the United States population among those people who commit mass shootings.

Still think the Black Lives Matters protesters were playing checkers, Chauncey?

"Following Sanders’ tense confrontation with #BlackLivesMatters activists at the progressive Netroots Nation conference in Phoenix on Saturday, the independent Vermont senator added a passage to his stump speech in Houston on Sunday referencing Bland’s death, a reference the Texas Tribune said drew the longest and loudest applause from the crowd."

I wouldn't say that the media "humanizes" white shooters as much as It stigmatizes them as "mentally ill," thereby further dehumanizing the already dehumanized group of people with mental health diagnoses. So-called "mentally ill" people commit less crimes and are much more likely to be the victims of crimes. A mental health diagnosis is not a predictor of violence, and going to this explanation is a way to disavow the white violence. Scapegoating, it's important to include this in your analysis.

The White-centric influences which set the agenda for "national conversations" must find a sacrificial group to pathologize for these White mass shootings. They can't avoid pathologizing altogether, because that's what they've conditioned the public to do, from individuals to news organizations. But what they can do is avoid blaming Whiteness the way the would other cultures by finding a scapegoat to shift focus to. Assigning the blame to mental illness provides a mitigating circumstance that allows them to avoid a number of subjects, from race to gun control to political influences.

AND it legitimizes further attacks on people with mental health diagnoses, such as the (white) national Initiative to outpatient Forced psychiatry, where as a condition of being released from inpatient treatment, people get coerced into having to take drugs that they may not want.

Tips and Support Are Always Welcome

Who is Chauncey DeVega?

I have been a guest on the BBC, National Public Radio, Ring of Fire Radio, Ed Schultz, Sirius XM's Make it Plain, Joshua Holland's Alternet Radio Hour, the Thom Hartmann radio show, the Burt Cohen show, and Our Common Ground.

I have also been interviewed on the RT Network and Free Speech TV.

I am a contributing writer for Salon and Alternet.

My writing has also been featured by Newsweek, The New York Daily News, Raw Story, The Huffington Post, and the Daily Kos.

My work has also been referenced by MSNBC, The Washington Post, USA Today, The Atlantic, The Christian Science Monitor, the Associated Press, Chicago Sun-Times, Raw Story, The Washington Spectator, Media Matters, The Gothamist, Fader, XOJane, The National Memo, The Root, Detroit Free Press, San Diego Free Press, the Global Post, The Lost Angeles Blade as well as online magazines and publications such as Slate, The Week, The New Republic, Buzzfeed, Counterpunch, Truth-Out, Pacific Standard, Common Dreams, The Daily Beast, The Washington Times, The Nation, RogerEbert.com, Ebony, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Fox News, Breitbart, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Juan Williams, Herman Cain, Alex Jones, World Net Daily, Twitchy, the Free Republic, the National Review, NewsBusters, the Media Research Council, Project 21, and Weasel Zippers have made it known that they do not like me very much.